Daniel Auster

Daniel Auster was born in 1893 in Kniahynyn

Daniel Auster was born in 1893 in Kniahynyn, a Galician town now part of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. His parents were Rachel Gutman and Jacob Auster.

He studied law at the University of Vienna and led a Zionist youth movement there. He moved to the Land of Israel in 1914. During World War I he served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army in Damascus.

After the war he worked as a lawyer and helped found the Hebrew Magistrates Court. He was a founder of the Rehavia neighborhood and was elected to the Jerusalem city council in 1934. The British High Commissioner named him deputy mayor in 1935.

In 1937 he became acting mayor, the first Jew in the post. He served again from 1944 and led the Hebrew city council from 1948. He signed the Declaration of Independence and became the first mayor of Jerusalem after Israel was founded.

In 1949 he led the For the Sake of Jerusalem list in the elections, which did not pass the threshold. In 1950 the council voted 11 to 9 for Shragai, and Auster lost the post. He died in 1963.